Tacitus and Juvenal resemble each other in their originality and vigor of thought and expression, their severe judgment of men and manners, and their pessimism. [Sidenote: Pliny the younger.] The younger Pliny contrasts with them in all these respects, and his letters give us an idea of Roman life very different from that which we derive from them. Gaius Plinius Cæcilius Secundus was the son of Lucius Cæcilius Cilo, a wealthy nobleman of Comum, but was adopted by will by his uncle, the elder Pliny. He therefore changed his name, which was originally Publius Cæcilius Secundus, and took that of his uncle, retaining his original family name, Cæcilius, only for legal and formal use. He was born in 61 or 62 A. D., for he was in his eighteenth year when the eruption of Vesuvius took place, August 24, 79 A. D. Cilo had died when Pliny was young, and the boy had become the ward of Verginius Rufus, which fact did not, however, diminish the paternal interest of his uncle, with whom he was at the time of the eruption. Pliny began his career as an advocate in 80 or 81 A. D. He held various offices, was military tribune, quæstor in 89-90 A. D., tribune of the people in 90-91 A. D., prætor in 93 A. D., was one of the prefects in charge of the war treasury and also of the general treasury, became consul in 100 A. D., and succeeded Sextus Julius Frontinus in the college of augurs in 103 or 104 A. D. He was governor of Pontus and Bithynia either in 111-112 or 112-113 A. D., and died before 114 A. D., either in his province or soon after his return to Italy. His life was passed chiefly in the service of the government, and for the most part at Rome. He was married three times, but had no children. He was an orator of some importance, delivering most of his speeches in inheritance cases, though he was employed five times in important criminal suits. He recited his speeches before delivering them in public, and after delivery he published them, sometimes with corrections. He was interested in poetry, and wrote poems of various kinds, but these, as well as his speeches, with the exception of his panegyric on Trajan, are lost.